SANDERLING 485 



taking short runs, with puffed out feathers and drooping wings, 

 to divert attention to herself. The birds sat closer in inclement 

 weather and at night. As is also the case with some other Waders, 

 especially the redshank and the curlew to be described later 

 a bird that usually leaves the nest early and secretly may on 

 occasion sit so close as almost to allow itself to be captured. Herr 

 Manniche was of opinion that the disposition to sit close was more 

 prevalent when incubation was far advanced. He noticed also 

 that when a sanderling is assured that her nest is discovered she 

 becomes " almost incredibly fearless." This he observed while photo- 

 graphing the nest and sitting birds. A photograph of a sanderling 

 sitting contentedly on her nest, and taken from a distance of " one 

 metre," without concealment of any kind, bears ample testimony to its 

 fearlessness. 



One sanderling which Herr Manniche discovered brooding her 

 eggs on 3rd July 1907 proved more than usually confiding. For half 

 an hour she remained quietly on the nest, during which time he took 

 several photographs of her, and then put her off and removed the 

 eggs, which had been incubated about ten days. The bird did not fly 

 away, but returned to and sat in the empty nest. She then plucked 

 up the lining of the nest, as though searching for her eggs, looked 

 under adjacent plants and in hollows of the ground, and at last crept 

 under the photographic apparatus. On leaving this she appeared 

 to have abandoned hope. "With a short cry she mounted in 

 the air and disappeared with a flight swift as lightning in a western 

 direction. For an hour I awaited the return of the bird, but in 



vain." 1 



Incubation is complete in " 23 to 24 times 24 hours." 2 The egg- 

 shells commence to burst some three days before the emergence of 

 the young ; only a few hours elapse between the hatching of the first 

 and last, when the egg-shells are removed from the nest by the old 

 bird. The chicks remain in the nest only long enough to enable the 



1 A. L. V. Manniche, op. tit., p. 146. 2 Ibid., p. 146. 



VOL. III. 3 R 



